“Where’s Terry?” he asked.
“He went after the bald bloke,” Bartholomew said between pants.
The deafening sound of the gunshot nearly caused all four men to jump out of their skins, and they turned as one to see the dishevelled nurse standing in the corridor, legs akimbo, pointing the still smoking gun at them. There was a hole in the ceiling above her head, and a great chunk of plaster now lay on the floor by her feet.
Dillon’s heart sank. “You’ve got to be kidding me…” he said.
“D-don’t move,” the black woman ordered, holding the gun in both hands and squinting down the barrel.
She looked dazed, Dillon thought, wondering if she had sustained a slight concussion from hitting the wall. It was either that or she was a junkie in withdrawal.
“Put the gun on the floor,” he told her calmly. “You’re in enough trouble already, don’t make things worse.”
“Shoot the motherfucking pig!” Winston yelled at her. “Do it now – pull the trigger and end him.”
Dillon saw her eyes anxiously flit from Winston to him as her forefinger tightened on the trigger. All it would take was five-pounds of pressure.
He held up a hand to stay her. “Wait,” he told her, and just to be sure that she did, he thrust Winston’s giant bulk in front of him and used him as a human shield. “If you try to shoot one of us, you might hit your mates.”
Dillon glanced to his side and was relieved to see that Nick Bartholomew had followed his lead and was now using the doctor’s body as a screen.
Shoving Winston forward in front of him, Dillon started to advance on the black woman.
“Stay still!” she screamed, taking a nervous step backwards to maintain the distance between them.
Dillon was so focused on the gun, and the shaking hands that held it, that he didn’t notice the sly smile that slithered onto Winston’s brutal face.
The next time Dillon pushed him forward, Winston let out a sharp cry of pain, swayed for a moment and then started to sag forwards.
“Shit!” Dillon cursed, convinced that Winston was about to pass out from his injuries. If he let Winston fall, he would lose the only protection he had against being shot, which was why, when the man’s knees started to buckle under him, Dillon was left with no choice but to release his grip on Winston’s shoulders and grab him around the waist to keep him in an upright position.
It was the moment that Winston had been waiting for. Summoning the last of his flagging strength, he rammed his head backwards with all the force he could muster, intent on smashing Dillon’s face into a bloody pulp.
The average human being’s reaction speed to visual stimulation has been calculated to be around 250 milliseconds, but that’s under optimum conditions in an environment where the brain is only processing a singular event. When multiple stimuli are found to be present, reaction time usually shrinks to around 500 – 600 milliseconds or, in layman’s terms, half a second.
Somehow, against the odds, Dillon managed to turn his head to the side, and while he wasn’t quick enough to avoid the impact altogether, he did succeed in minimising it to a glancing blow against the side of his concrete-thick skull.
The collision was powerful enough to stun him momentarily, but it didn’t do anywhere near the amount of damage that Winston had intended.
Having broken free from his captor, Winston tottered forward unsteadily. “Give me the gun, he shouted, hand outstretched.
Ignoring the pain, and the horrible ringing in his ears, Dillon hurtled himself forward to re-engage Winston.
“Stay where you are, pig,” Winston warned, pointing the reacquired gun at his centre mass.
Still a good three strides away, Dillon had no choice but to comply. The left side of his head was starting to throb like a bastard. “This is starting to become a tiresome habit,” he said, reaching up to rub it.
Grinning vengefully, Winston thumbed back the hammer. “Don’t worry, this’ll be the last time.” To his disappointment, there was no fear in the detective’s eyes, only defiance – not that it would do him any good.
“Got anything to say before I kill you, pig?”
Dillon nodded slowly. “Yeah, how’s your hair growing back?” During November’s arrest, Dillon had ripped out a huge handful of Winston’s precious dreadlocks.
The leering grin vanished from Claude Winston’s face, only to be replaced by a thunderous scowl, and he subconsciously raised a hand to his head as the painful recollection caused his scalp to start tingling.
Nick Bartholomew was standing a yard or so to Dillon’s left, still hiding behind the bogus doctor. While not directly in the line of fire, he was still near enough to feel extremely uncomfortable, and he knew that once Winston had finished with Dillon, he would turn his attention on him.
Moving slowly, so as not to draw attention, Bartholomew felt for the canister of CS spray in the pouch on his utility belt. Without taking his eyes from the gun-toting psycho, he unclipped the Velcro fastening and removed it.
Nick knew that if he was going to make a move it would have to be very soon, while Winston’s attention was still focused on Tony Dillon to the exclusion of everybody else around him.
The angle of attack was all wrong for what he had in mind, so Nick cautiously shuffled a half step to the left, dragging his unresisting prisoner with him.
To his enormous relief, Winston didn’t seem to notice, and the fake doctor was so absorbed in what was going on between Winston and the detective that he didn’t protest.
Bartholomew’s legs felt like rubber, but he forced them to move again, propelling himself and his prisoner yet another step to the left. The can felt damp in his hand, clammy and uncomfortable. He could feel beads of sweat running down the side of his face, and his shirt felt unbearably sticky as it clung to his perspiring body.
It was all down to timing
